The courage of present times and all times;

How the skipper saw the crowded and rudderless wreck of the steam

-

ship, and Death chasing

it up and down the storm;

How he knuckled tight, and gave not back one

inch, and was faithful of days and faithful of

nights,

And chalk’d in large letters, on a board,

Be of good cheer, we will not desert you:

825

How he follow’d with them, and tack’d with them

—

and would not give it

up

;

How he saved the drifting company at last:

How the lank loose

-

gown’d women look’d when boated from the side of their prepared

graves;

How the silent old

-

faced infants, and the lifted sick, and the sharp

-

lipp’d

unshaved men:

All this I swallow

—

it tastes good

—

I like it well

—

it becomes mine;

830

I am the man

—

I suffer’d

—

I was there.

The disdain and calmness of

olden

martyrs;

The mother, condemn’d for a witch, burnt with dry wood, her children gazing on;

The hounded slave that flags in the race, leans by the fence, blowing, cover’d with sweat;

The twinges that sting like needles his legs and neck

—

the murderous buckshot

and the

bullets;

835

All these I feel, or am.

I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs,

Hell and despair are upon me, crack and again crack the marksmen;

I clutch the rails of the fence, my gore dribs, thinn’d

with the ooze of my skin;

I fall on the weeds and stones;

840

The riders spur their unwilling horses, haul close,

Taunt my dizzy ears, and beat me violently over the head with

whip

-

stocks

.

Agonies are one of my changes of garments;

I do not ask the wounded person how he feels

—

I myself become the wounded person;

My hurts turn livid upon me as I lean on a cane and observe.

845

I am the mash’d

fireman with breast

-

bone broken;

Tumbling walls buried me in their debris;

Heat and smoke I inspired

—

I heard the yelling shouts of my comrades;

I heard the distant click of their picks and shovels;

They have clear’d

the beams away

—

they tenderly lift me forth.

850

I lie in the night air in my red shirt

—

the pervading hush is for my sake;

Painless after all I lie, exhausted but not so unhappy;

White and beautiful are the faces around me

—

the heads are bared

of their fire

-

caps;

The kneeling crowd fades with the light of the torches.

Distant and dead resuscitate;

855

They show as the dial or move as the hands of me

—

I am the clock myself.

I am an old artillerist

—

I tell of my fort’s

bombardment;

I am there again.

Again the long roll of the

drummers

;

Again the attacking cannon, mortars;

860

Again, to my listening ears, the cannon

responsive

.

I take part

—

I see and hear the whole;

The cries, curses, roar

—

the plaudits for well

-

aim’d shots;

The ambulanza slowly passing, trailing its red drip;

Workmen

searching after damages,

making

indispensable repairs;

865

The fall of grenades through the rent roof

—

the fan

-

shaped explosion;

The whizz of limbs, heads, stone, wood, iron, high in the

air.

Again gurgles the mouth of my dying general

—

he furiously waves with his hand;

He gasps through the clot,

Mind not me

—

mind

—

the entrenchments.